Remember
by Sable Supernova
Summary: Arthur Weasley goes to visit his ageing mother in the hospital, taking his son, Fred, with him. At the same time, memories of a scene when Arthur was six years old, sat on Cedrella's knee, rise to the surface of Arthur's thoughts.


**A/N: Written for The Mother's Day Competition, for the family pair: Cedrella Weasley and Arthur Weasley.**

 **Also written for The Codebreaker (Mastermind) Challenge, for the prompts: Fred Weasley, Linkin Park - Numb, "satisfy" and "need".**

* * *

Fred walks down the corridor, rubber soles of his shoes squeaking against the linoleum. He looks up at his father who walks beside him, but his father stares straight ahead. Fred wonders why; he knows the path, they both do. They've counted these footsteps; they've smiled at these Healers - every week, the story is the same.

His father signs the visitor's book for them both as Fred stares at the clock. A young woman stares through them with a too-bright lipstick smile and eyes that don't quite focus as she advises them of the opening times. Fred wonders if she's just an illusion.

-o0o-

 _A young boy presses his freckled face into his mother's chest as she strokes his hair - his hair that shines like a sunset; like an autumn day; like his father's. The young boy twirls a lock of his mother's long raven curls as his eyes glaze over in fatigue._

 _"Mum," the little boy starts. His mother vocalises a tired breath, encouraging her son to speak. "Why do I only have cousins on dad's side?" he asked, avoiding her eyes as if he knew, even in his innocence, that his question was not welcome._

 _"Well, you don't. We just don't see them," the woman replied, though her hand had stilled on the boy's head. Her eyes, no longer cast down towards her son, were staring ahead at memories, people, that this home has never contained._

 _"Why?"_

 _The boy turned to look at his mother and she was forced to look at him._

-o0o-

Fred stands behind his father as they enter the room, as if the shadow of the man could hide the boy. The old lady's skin is stretched thin and loose over her face, dragging downwards as if already trying to melt from the bone beneath. Her eyes, milky and dull with cataracts, slowly rise to see the visitors and Fred gulps as he watches her thick eyebrows knit together. She is looking at the man, at Fred's father. The tarnished steel of her gaze takes in the characteristic hair, the grim smile he's attempting.

"I don't know you," she says, her voice thin and strained. Arthur's smile fades.

The woman catches sight of Fred and jerks her head towards him to really look at him, wiry grey curls standing stubborn on her scalp, unyielding. Fred freezes in fear. This was the part he hated.

"I know you," she says.

-o0o-

 _The woman did not answer her son straight away. Though her mind was quick and sharp, still in the grasps of youth as it was, she did not know how to make her son understand. She did not know if she wanted her son to understand._

 _"We don't get along with my family, Arthur. We never have, not since your father and I chose to be a family. We have different beliefs," she explained, unable to keep the sadness from her voice as she spoke of all she lost._

 _"That's sad," the little boy commented, understanding enough of his mother's words to know that this family existed, but in a world outside of his own. "I wish I had a really big family."_

 _Cedrella laughed despite herself. She thought back to her childhood. She thought of the Christmases when strangers had been introduced as distant cousins and left a damp patch on her cheek by way of a greeting. She thought of how, even just for a little while as a child, she had at least belonged somewhere._

 _"Well, you'll have to have lots of children when you grow up," she told her son with a smile._

-o0o-

Fred waits for her to speak again. Her eyes bore holes right through him as if trying to recognise his soul behind his face. He waits for her to smile, and call him Arthur; waits for his father's face to fall as his heart is broken again and again. He's holding his breath when he notices that his father is, too.

Her lips begin to tug as her eyes soften. Fred wishes he could close his lids from the sight in front of him, escape within himself and not be here now.

"You," she says, strength returning but voice still frail. "Step forward." Fred does as the old lady says, knowing he has no choice. "You're the Weasley boy, aren't you? I went to school with you."

Fred and his father freeze and their faces pale. For once, he's not his father. He has bigger, older, harder shoes to fill.

-o0o-

 _The very idea of growing up seemed to spark a whirlwind of excitement within the boy as his eyes widened._

 _"Mum, can I be a train driver when I grow up?" he asked, fixing her with a hopeful gaze._

 _She smiled, knowing her son and loving him nonetheless. "You can be whatever you want to be, but with magic, you know the choice is even bigger," she explained._

 _"Can I really be anything, mum? Anything I want?" he asked, unable to comprehend how many doors were open in front of him._

 _"Anything at all." Her family be damned, she would not take that choice away from her son. Whatever he wanted for himself would satisfy her._

-o0o-

Fred follows his father out of the room, helpless. He wants to tell his father to stop; he wants to calm him down and tell the man it will be okay. He knows it would do nothing.

His father spots a Healer and make his way over, the corridor his warpath.

"You promised me she wouldn't get worse! You promised me you were helping her! Why did you lie? I need the truth this time!" Arthur shouts, his eyes damp and his face pink. Fred sees his father's hands shake as he points at the hospital staff. "Why has my mother forgotten me?"

Fred steps forward and places his hand on his dad's shoulder and forces the man to look at him while the medics offer excuses and explanations.

"Dad?" Fred asks, his voice breaking through the commotion and din to reach his father.

-o0o-

 _"Mum, what's it like growing old?" Every time the woman thought her son was near to rest, he thought up something else he felt he had to know. She knew how it could begin to grate on her nerves, but she loved him for his curiosity and open mind._

 _She thought about that one, and at first didn't know what to say. She didn't feel old enough to answer yet. "Well, you have more things that you need to keep in your head, so you remember less and less that isn't important."_

 _Instead of the laugh she had expected, her son gasped. She looked down to a face in abject horror at her words. "What if... What if you forget me?" he asked, voice low as he daren't speak the words._

 _"Oh, darling, no," she said, rushing to placate the little boy. "I could never forget you. Or your brothers. I'll never forget you for as long as I live." She placed a gentle kiss on his forehead as he relaxed into her, finally closing his eyes._

-o0o-

Fred faces his father in an empty waiting room, neither speaking.

"I'm sorry, son, I shouldn't bring you here," Arthur says, a calm beginning to wash over him, tinged with regret.

"Why do you?" Fred asks, hoping for the answer he never gets. His father sighs.

"Because she's my mum. She promised me she'd never forget me when I was six. But she's only remembered me as a child for years, now. When she began to recognise you as me... I'm sorry, Fred. You shouldn't be spending your holidays like this," his eyes begin to dampen as his son stands desperate to hear the rest of his words, begging for the truth that would make it all okay. "When she sees you... I know that somehow, my mum still loves me."

The tears begin to fall and Fred steps towards his father to pull him into an embrace. Arthur buries his head into his son's shoulder as the sobs wrack his frame.

Fred found himself beginning to understand. His father had wanted him to fill his shoes, to be him for the sake of his mother. Fred found himself, for the first time, disagreeing with his father. For the first time, he truly saw that his father was human, and that he had made a grave mistake.

"Dad, I'm not you. I'm not who you wanted me to be," Fred tells his father, a gentle voice in his ear.

"I know. I'm sorry. I love you, son."

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